


runaways

by novoaa1



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: 'cause there's not enough beds lol, Accidental Cuddling, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Clarice Ferguson Needs a Hug, Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong Has a Potty Mouth, Death, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Good Sibling Pietro Maximoff, Grumpy Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong, Hitchhiking, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color, Lesbian Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong, Minor Character Death, Morning Cuddles, Near Death Experiences, Not Canon Compliant, On the Run, POV Lesbian Character, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Pietro Maximoff Needs a Hug, Pietro Maximoff is a Little Shit, Runaway Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles, Swearing, Teenagers, Telepathic Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, because it builds character or something, soft Wanda Maximoff, three terrified kids just figuring things out, x mansion won't stop blowing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29049867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: She pulls up short, turns to face him. Unfortunately, he’s got a solid five inches on her, so she has to crane her neck upwards in order to glare at him properly.“What the hell do you want?” she demands.He blinks, suddenly looking nervous. “I, um… was wondering if I could ask your help with something?”“I have no idea who you are.”“I’m Pietro!” he tells her (again). “And you are…”Clarice clenches her jaw in frustration, but ultimately decides it’s a relatively harmless question to answer. “Clarice.”Or: After the X Mansion blows up (again) and shit hits the fan, Clarice finds herself alone. Again. Somewhere along the way, she meets a peculiar set of twins.
Relationships: Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong & James Proudstar, Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong & Kitty Pryde, Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong & Kitty Pryde & James Proudstar, Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong & Pietro Maximoff, Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong & Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Clarice Ferguson | Clarice Fong/Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	runaways

**Author's Note:**

> [clarice ferguson [AKA blink]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_\(comics\)) in this work is inspired with two different portrayals of her in mind: the costume, makeup & some characterization of [fan bingbing's portrayal](https://marvel-movies.fandom.com/wiki/Clarice_Ferguson) of her from _x-men: days of future past_ and the physical appearance & age of [jamie chung's portrayal](https://thegifted.fandom.com/wiki/Blink) of her from _the gifted_. 
> 
> [kitty pryde [AKA shadowcat]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Pryde) in this work is inspired with [elliot page's portrayal](https://xmenmovies.fandom.com/wiki/Kitty_Pryde) of her in the _x-men cinematic universe_
> 
> [james proudstar [AKA warpath]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warpath_\(comics\)) in this work is visually inspired by what i imagine to be a younger version of [booboo stewart's portrayal](https://marvel-movies.fandom.com/wiki/James_Proudstar) of him from _x-men: days of future past_.
> 
> [wanda maximoff [AKA scarlet witch]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Witch) in this work is visually and characteristically inspired by [elizabeth olsen's portrayal](https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Scarlet_Witch) of her in the _marvel cinematic universe_.
> 
> [pietro maximoff [AKA quicksilver]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_\(comics\)) in this work is visually and characteristically inspired by [aaron-taylor johnson's portrayal](https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Quicksilver) of him in the _marvel cinematic universe_.

If there’s one thing that Clarice has learned in life, it’s that being special is kind of overrated. 

After all, look where it’s gotten her. 

She doesn’t mean to sound bitter. Really, she doesn’t.

Well, actually, she sort of does. She just wants to be _normal_. Ever since she was a kid, that’s all she’d ever wanted. 

She never got it. 

But then again, that’s pretty much what happens when you get born with pointy elf ears, permanent bright purple highlights in your hair, and bright green eyes with slitted pupils like a freaking snake. 

It doesn’t get any better when things start disappearing around you—like, literally disappearing in your hands. Toys, snacks, your foster parents’ car keys. A flash of neon purple, sparks flying between your chubby little hands, and _poof_. Gone. 

Like it or not, that’s exactly how things happen for her. 

Years pass, and Clarice discovers that she’s not just making things disappear. Well, not really. She’s making portals, because evidently that’s a thing that she can do. So, the things aren’t disappearing, they’re just getting sent… somewhere. 9 times out of 10, she hasn’t the faintest clue where. 

Control doesn’t come easy. Things keep disappearing around her, but it gets better with time. Sort of. It’s still frustrating as hell, and she’s still pissed about her iPod. And her skateboard. And the pretty silver necklace her first (and only) friend gave her back in the seventh grade. 

On her thirteenth birthday, she’s gifted with these triangular black marks below her eyes and over her brows—and, please note here that she uses the term ‘gifted’ in only the loosest sense. They kind of look like Anakin’s scar from Star Wars, except on both eyes and way less cool, because they don’t make her tough or rugged. They just make her even more of a freak. 

Luckily, she can pass it off most times as a bold makeup choice, because that’s a thing that’s becoming popular among girls her age, but it irks her nonetheless. 

One would think it’d get better when the bald white guy in a wheelchair who claims he can read minds diagnoses her with a raging case of mutant freak disorder, because at least someone’s finally giving her a semi-rational explanation to explain an adolescence full of freakazoid bullshit. 

It doesn’t. It just further cements the sordid reality that’s been plaguing her since well before she could really understand what it implied—that there’s something really, seriously wrong with her. 

Either way, things change after that. The bald guy gets a name—Professor X. His real name is Charles, but she’s not allowed to call him that, and she doesn’t really want to, anyway. Turns out, he actually _can_ read minds. She doesn’t believe him at first, but then he starts talking in her head and pulling out these fragmented memories from childhood to prove it (stuff she never told _anybody_ ), and she decides he’s probably legit. 

Professor X gives her a spot at his school for ‘gifted individuals.’ She finds out pretty soon that ‘gifted individual’ is just code for ‘freak.’ 

Still, there’s something to be said for the fact that she’s not the weirdest kid in school anymore. Or, maybe she is, but it’s a close thing, and that’s already leagues better than what she’s used to. 

She meets a shy girl named Kitty who can phase through walls. She’s quiet and tortured and a little rough around the edges, but with her, Clarice doesn’t have to worry about opening a portal on accident that chops her head off and sends it to God knows where. 

She did that once, back before she came to Xavier. The girl died. Like, on the floor, ghostly pale, no heartbeat, _dead_. 

Never again. 

After a couple years at Xavier, another kid with a dire case of Resting Bitch Face and an explosive temper that rivals her own starts dogging Clarice around. He’s got black shoulder-length hair, tawny skin, and an annoyingly symmetrical face. He sits next to her in shared classes, hangs at the same table as her during breaks and meals. It annoys her at first, but she brushes it off, assuming he’ll eventually get bored. 

He doesn’t. 

After a month, Clarice corners her stalker in the halls to inform him that she’s a lesbian, so he should probably find some other girl ( _any_ other girl, really) to creep on lest he really start to piss her off. He’s a solid foot taller than she is, and looks bulky enough to bench press her without breaking a sweat, but she doesn’t care. He’s pissing her off, and she’s never been one to back down from a fight. 

He just calmly holds her gaze, smirking like she’s said something funny, but otherwise says nothing. 

He continues sitting next to her at meals, and looking to her whenever there’s a chance to choose partners for group projects in Mutant History. 

She starts to think that he might have a bit of a death wish.

“I wasn’t kidding about being a lesbian,” Clarice tells him flatly one day after he wordlessly sets his lunch tray beside hers, takes a seat beside her, and slides his chocolate chip cookie her way. 

He doesn’t answer or give any indication that he’s heard her, just tucks a stray lock of dark hair behind his ear and starts eating. 

“I killed someone once,” Clarice says.

The corner of his lips kick up into a smile. He keeps eating. 

She sighs and keeps eating, too. After downing her lunch and stealing glances at the extra cookie he slid over to her on a napkin, she takes that one, too. She could swear she sees him smirk. 

Three months later, he finally speaks to her for the very first time. Little phrases, few and far between, but it’s jarring nonetheless. His name is James, she learns. James Proudstar. 

He can smell things she can’t, see things from really far away. He’s also crazy strong, and his reflexes are insane.

He never makes a move on her, and whenever she gets a little paranoid about him getting too close, Clarice is all too quick to inform him (again) that she’s a lesbian. It seems to amuse him more than anything else. 

Despite her better instincts, he steadily worms his way past her defenses. A year later, and he’s become her closest friend at Xavier. 

Everyone thinks they’re dating, she and James. As annoying as it is, it does well to keep the occasional guy who wants in her pants at bay, which she’ll admit is kind of nice. 

James is still respectful as ever, and more often than not, he’ll give her his dessert at mealtimes. Clarice finds out later that it’s because he doesn’t like sweets. 

Kitty eats lunch with them, too, but James doesn’t seem to take to her the way he takes to Clarice. 

Clarice reminds James that she’s a lesbian. Again. He doesn’t respond verbally, but his lips purse like they do when he’s trying hard not to smile. Just for that, she punches him in his massive arm as hard as she can, even if it ~~probably~~ hurts her a hell of a lot more than it does him. 

She still worries all the time about losing control and slicing some random kid in half with an ill-timed portal, but she improves with every training session under Professor X’s watchful eye. 

It’s even better with James and Kitty. Sometimes, when she’s sprawled out with the two of them making stupid jokes in the grassy fields behind the mansion, she almost forgets about the pointy ears and reptilian eyes and freakazoid powers. 

Almost. 

She’s still not exactly popular at the school, but she’s not hated, either, and she knows better than anyone not to take that for granted. 

Despite herself, she starts to get comfortable there. She puts down roots. She starts to feel like she’s _home_.

Like all things in her life, it doesn’t last. The mansion gets blown to hell, a fight with the wrong bad guy earns James a spear through the heart for his troubles, Kitty takes off and makes Clarice promise not to come looking for her in the wake of Armageddon.

She’s alone. Again. 

Half a week later finds her hitchhiking along Route 105 down to Boston when some speedster asshole zips up beside her in a crackle of neon blue. He’s got pale features, an athletic build, and short windswept hair that looks as though it’s been bleached within an inch of its life—bright, spotless platinum blonde. 

“Hello,” he says. 

Clarice ignores him, just keeps walking with a less-than-enthused frown and her thumb held out. Three more cars whip by. 

“My name is Pietro,” he says. His words are stilted, heavily accented—European. Slavic, most likely. 

_Jesus Christ_. “I don’t care,” Clarice tells him. 

Another car whips by bringing a gust of wind, and Clarice fights the urge to shiver. Pietro still keeps pace with her, wide eyes boring a hole through the side of her skull. 

Clarice stubbornly ignores him.

“You are a mutant,” he says. 

Clarice doesn’t turn and punch him for that, though she’s sorely tempted. “Would you like a sticker?” she asks instead, derision dripping from her tone. 

“A sticker?” he repeats, bewilderment coloring his words. “Not really. Why, do you have one?”

_Fuck’s sake_. “No.”

“Oh.” 

Clarice eyes him out of her periphery. He looks like he’s dressed to go to the gym in basketball shorts, a long-sleeved nylon shirt, and ratty Nike sneakers. 

Two more cars pass by. One of them honks at her and yells something unintelligible out of their window. Clarice ignores them. 

He walks alongside her for another minute or so. The only sounds are car engines, the wind in her ears, and gravel crunching beneath the soles of their shoes. 

Finally, she snaps. 

She pulls up short, turns to face him. Unfortunately, he’s got a solid five inches on her, so she has to crane her neck upwards in order to glare at him properly. 

“What the hell do you want?” she demands.

He blinks, suddenly looking nervous. “I, um… was wondering if I could ask your help with something?”

“I have no idea who you are.”

“I’m Pietro!” he tells her (again). “And you are…”

Clarice clenches her jaw in frustration, but ultimately decides it’s a relatively harmless question to answer. “Clarice.”

“Cool,” he says, fiddling with his hands. Another car whizzes by. “You went to Professor X’s school for gifted individuals, right?”

Clarice narrows her gaze. “What’s it to you?”

“My sister and I were trying to go there,” he explains, “but then we heard that it… blew up.” Clarice feels her heart twinge at the reminder, agitation crawling beneath her skin. Pietro must sense it, because he hastens to add, “We’re mutants, too.”

“I figured,” Clarice says drolly. “How’d you find me?”

“My sister,” Pietro answers, something like pain flitting through his gaze. “She can sense things… people’s energy. She tracked you late last night, said you were powerful. In the morning, I was supposed to find you.”

Clarice raises a single brow. Not an entirely outlandish claim, but she’d believe it when she saw it. “Well, you found me. Where is your sister now?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Pietro frowns, a troubled crease forming between his brows. “I woke this morning and she was gone. I waited for an hour, but… nothing.”

“Maybe she took a walk to clear her head,” she suggests. She’s loath to admit that the sadness in his big hazel eyes looks legitimate—what’s more, that it’s actually starting to tug at her heartstrings. 

“No,” Pietro insists, shaking his head profusely. “No, we never leave each other for that long. _Ever_. It’s not safe.” 

Despite everything, Clarice feels herself nodding. She can empathize with that. “Well, I’m sorry about your sister, but I can’t help you. I can’t track her… energy, or whatever.”

Pietro’s brow furrows. “But you are a teleporter,” he argues. 

“Not exactly.” Clarice eyes him distrustfully. “Did your sister tell you that?”

Pietro nods jerkily. “You can jump from place to place through the same fields of energy my sister gets her powers from.”

_Conjecture_. But Clarice sighs, taking pity on him. “I make _portals_ , Pietro. It’s not the same thing.”

“But Wanda said—”

“I don’t _care_ what your sister said,” Clarice snaps. Her stomach growls. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

With that, she stomps off, leaving Pietro in a trail of dust. 

She walks for another 10 minutes before a blur appears at her side, blue energy crackling in the air. 

_Fucking hell_. 

“You just don’t give up, do you?”

“Will you please just try?” Pietro begs from beside her, and sure enough—yep, there he is. He’s not even winded, the speedy asshole. “When Wanda touches people, she can feel their energy. She said you should be able to do that, too.”

Clarice heaves a loud sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose as she stops and turns to face him once more. “And what if I could?” she says, dropping her hands to her sides. “What difference would that make? I don’t know your sister’s energy, which means that I can’t track her.”

“But if you touch me, you’ll feel _my_ energy.” Pietro looks down on her with a pleading expression, eyes glassy with unshed tears. “We’re twins. Our energies are almost identical.”

Clarice pauses. Historically, she’s been able to summon portals directly to a person by way of utilizing a close relative’s energy. It’s never a sure thing, but it’s possible. 

“Wait, that might actually work,” she mutters, thoughts racing. 

Pietro nods eagerly, and damn him, but it’s contagious. “Yeah!”

“Okay, yeah, fine.” Pietro whoops loudly, pumping his fist in the air. Clarice has to bite back a snort. “First thing’s first: let’s get away from the interstate, yeah?”

— —

One person-shaped purple portal and a very awkward hand-holding session later finds them stumbling into a field of technicolored light, hand-in-hand. The air around them is cold and wet but warm and impossibly dry at the same time, wreaking havoc on Clarice’s senses. 

“Oh, what the _fuck_ ?!” Clarice exclaims to no one in particular, tearing her hand from Pietro’s and levelling him with a glower. “Where are we?!”

Pietro, to his credit, appears similarly confounded. He whirls this way and that in a blur of motion, eyes bulging, jaw hanging wide open. “Uh…”

There’s a mirage of neon light over their heads—reds and greens and blues and yellows in brilliant kaleidoscopic hues, all shifting and blurring into the other. It’s like the Northern Lights at the break of dawn, splashes of color in a pale pinkish-lilac sky all around. Clarice saw a picture of that in National Geographic, once. 

“Wanda?” Pietro asks, his voice at least an octave higher than it should be.

As if on cue, there’s a flare of… something, and then a figure appears before them in a swirl of glowing crimson. She’s… really pretty, for starters. 

Long brown hair, wide blueish-green eyes, the faintest hint of freckles spattered across her pert nose. She’s wearing a flowing black dress that cuts off at mid-thigh, a red leather jacket, and black combat boots that look like they’ve seen better days. Red swirls around her slender hands, her fingers baring an assortment of silver rings. 

“Pietro,” she gasps out in a quiet voice, like she can’t quite believe it. Her pronunciation is hampered with a prominent Eastern European accent that’s damn near identical to that of Pietro’s. _Wanda_. “You found me.” Then her gaze falls on Clarice, and her expression shifts, tension bleeding into her stance. “Who are you?”

“I… Pietro said he needed to find you,” Clarice manages with a shrug even as Wanda’s gaze seems to bore through her. 

“She’s the teleporter, remember?” Pietro interjects, looking to Wanda with an earnest grin. Clarice debates correcting him, but ultimately decides against it. The kid is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement. “She brought me here.”

“Wherever ‘here’ is,” Clarice mumbles.

Wanda’s gaze narrows on her. Clarice can almost _see_ the gears turning in her brain. “I was out practicing magic, trying to fashion a portal,” she admits, lips twitching with a flicker of annoyance. “It didn’t work.” 

If at all possible, Pietro’s eyes get even bigger. “It brought you here instead?” 

Wanda nods, then turns again to Clarice. “You helped my brother find me,” she says slowly, her tone ripe with skepticism. “Why?”

“Pietro says you can read minds. Why don’t you tell me?”

Wanda’s eyes flash a burning crimson—here one second, gone the next. Then, she smiles and shoots Pietro a knowing look. “I like her,” she tells him. 

“Me, too,” Pietro agrees earnestly. 

Despite herself, Clarice feels her cheeks get hot. “Can we go now?”

Wanda giggles. It’s an adorable sound. “Sure.”

“Beam us up, Scotty,” Pietro adds, grinning broadly. 

Clarice rolls her eyes. _Jesus Christ_. 

— —

Clarice portals them directly into the motel room she’d been crashing in for the past two nights before she got the brilliant idea (read: spur-of-the-moment impulse) to head south. 

After all, it’s not like either of the Wonder Twins are offering up any other prospects. 

It’s sheer dumb luck that the room is vacant when they step through—vacant and _clean_ , like housekeeping’s already been in. 

Then again—it is Nashua, New Hampshire. Clarice may not be all that well-traveled, but she’s seen enough to know that this place isn’t exactly ranking high on the popularity charts. 

“I stayed here for a couple nights before you found me,” Clarice says by way of explanation, gesturing around to the modest space. “It’s a little motel in the south of New Hampshire.” 

As living accommodations go, it’s far from shabby: 

Two twin-sized beds with vintage flowered quilts like an old folks’ home; a digital clock and King James Bible sitting side-by-side atop a stout nightstand in between. A small bathroom over by the second bed, and a tiny closet at the foot of the first.

“Woah,” Pietro says, looking around in awe. “Nice!” 

With that, he’s zooming over to the second bed in a crackle of neon blue, throwing himself face-first down onto the mattress. If he notices (or cares) about how the bed frame creaks something awful under his weight, he doesn’t show it. 

Wanda shakes her head, a grin creeping across her pretty features. “Sorry about him,” she says quietly to Clarice, though the affectionate gleam in her eye tells Clarice she’s more amused than anything else. 

Clarice shrugs, feeling her cheeks heat. For one of the first times in her life, she’s actually glad for the bronze-ish tones of her skin. It does well to hide even the most lurid of blushes. “You guys can stay here tonight, if you want,” she offers lamely, struggling to hold Wanda’s gaze. 

A crease forms between Wanda’s brows. “What about you?”

At that, Pietro turns to sit bolt upright in his self-proclaimed bed, alarm splayed clearly across his handsome features. “You’re leaving?” He sounds just a hair short of heartbroken. 

“I…” And damn her, but she hesitates. She shakes her head vehemently to clear the fog in her mind, a familiar pain cleaving through her chest like a molten blade. “I’m dangerous,” she admits quietly, staring down at her feet and refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. “People die around me.”

A beat passes in silence. 

“We can protect you,” Wanda says eventually, and when she places a hand on Clarice’s lower back in an attempt at comfort, Clarice doesn’t flinch away. (Even if she ~~kind of~~ wants to.) “We can protect _each other_.”

“People die around us, too,” Pietro offers up, a somber note to his tone that Clarice hasn’t heard from him up until now. “And… you helped me. You helped _us_.”

Clarice swallows hard, fighting tears. “I killed someone once,” she says quietly. 

“Me, too,” Wanda replies without an ounce of hesitation, raw emotion choking her words. 

“Me, three,” Pietro adds dolefully. He sounds far too broken for a kid his age. 

Then again, Clarice is his age, too. She forgets that sometimes. 

Clarice nods, finally daring to look up. They’re both watching her intently, a silent plea in their eyes. It breaks her fucking heart—but heals it somehow, too, at the same damn time.

Clarice takes a long, shuddering inhale, then lets her gaze meet Wanda’s. 

The other girl calms her, somehow. Anchors her. 

“There’s only two beds,” she says. It’s a weak argument, and she knows it. She thinks that Pietro and Wanda must know it, too.

“We’ll sleep together,” Wanda says, then blushes and ducks her head as Pietro snickers. “I mean…” She huffs, shooting a half-hearted glare at Pietro before turning back to Clarice. “You know what I mean.”

Clarice worries her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, but eventually nods. “Okay.”

“You’ll stay?” Wanda questions breathlessly, like she can’t quite believe it. 

Clarice nods, warmth exploding in her chest as Wanda breaks into a blinding grin. “Yeah.”

“Yes!” Pietro exclaims, bouncing up and down on the bed in sparks of luminescent blue like the Energizer Bunny if it got struck by lightning. The poor mattress elicits a constant melody of squeaks and groans, audibly straining beneath his frantic movements, but he doesn’t seem to care. 

Despite herself, Clarice huffs out a watery laugh.

_Idiot_. 

— —

They crash at the motel for the night, and like most nights, sleep doesn’t come easy.

Clarice damn near has a fucking aneurysm trying to give Wanda enough space on the tiny twin-sized mattress without falling off the other side. 

She smells like cinnamon and stale cigarettes and stardust, somehow (though Clarice hasn’t the faintest clue how she’d know the scent of stardust in the first place), and damn it all but Clarice wants to track it right to its source and inhale it forever. 

Pietro’s snoring doesn’t exactly help matters, either. 

Well. Regardless, at some point, she falls asleep. 

And when she awakens at shit o’clock in the morning (read: 8:23) to a face full of Wanda’s sweet-smelling hair, her arm curled around the girl’s trim waist, and Pietro looming over the pair of them wearing the most infuriating smirk… well. 

It’s a rude awakening to be sure, and her cheeks are on fire with the knowledge that at some point in the night, she started _spooning_ Wanda like a horny teenage boy… but Wanda is still asleep, letting out these tiny little kitten-ish noises that aren’t quite snores but aren’t _not_ snores, and Clarice is loath to move an inch no matter how much shit Pietro gives her for it. 

Pietro is still looming over her, boyish features illuminated by beams of too-bright sunlight streaming in from the opposite window, staring her down with a contemplative look like he wants to say something but doesn’t quite know how to say it. 

Clarice shifts her head just slightly to slant him a sidelong glare. 

Pietro rolls his eyes. “Does this mean I have to give you the—how do you say it— _shovel talk_ ?” he whispers. 

Clarice flushes slightly but otherwise keeps her features impassive. “Shut up,” she hisses, nuzzling her nose carefully back into Wanda’s sleep-mussed hair. “Let her sleep.”

If anything, Pietro’s smirk grows wider at that—but he relents, holding up his hands, and disappearing into the bathroom… though, not before flashing Clarice one last knowing look over his shoulder that she dutifully returns with a heavy-browed glare. 

Wanda mumbles out something unintelligible, then, exhaustion slurring her words. 

It’s adorable. 

“Shh,” Clarice whispers. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

Wanda hums, shuffling further back into Clarice’s body with a pleased purr. 

Clarice grins, letting her eyelids flutter shut. 

And for the first time in a week, things feel… okay. 

Not good, not perfect, but just _okay_. 

To Clarice, that’s everything. 

— —

**Author's Note:**

> do i know what this is? no. i just really loved blink's character, and i vividly remember seeing fan bingbing play her in _x-men: days of future past_ , 'cause i'd never really seen an east asian superhero before, and as someone of east-asian descent, that was pretty groundbreaking for me to witness
> 
> especially considering fan bingbing is a chinese-born and chinese-speaking actress who's largely acted exclusively in chinese movies—then for her to come and play a role in an american blockbuster film? wild 
> 
> plus then the chinese government made her disappear 'cause tax fraud in 2018 for FOUR WHOLE MONTHS because that's just a thing that they can do evidently??? just make people—even people of such prominent status—disappear without explanation??? i did my final senior-year project on her in my mandarin-speaking class. crazy stuff
> 
> also yeah, i'll say it—she's hot. there


End file.
